Resigned only to avoid controversy: Ashwani

Congress leader Ashwani Kumar at Parliament House in New Delhi. PTI photo

A day after his exit from the Union cabinet, former law minister Ashwani Kumar on Saturday said he had resigned to put an end to an “unnecessary controversy,” though the Supreme Court had made no adverse comments against him.

In a brief media interaction, during which he read out a seven-line statement and refused to answer a volley of questions directed at him, Kumar termed his ouster from the cabinet a political decision.

“I have done so to put an end to an unnecessary controversy in a matter which is before the honourable Supreme Court and in which no adverse comments have been made against me in any manner whatsoever,” Kumar said.

“My conscience remains clear and I believe that I will stand vindicated because divine justice ordains that truth and justice will prevail,” said the former minister, considered close to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Kumar had to put in his papers on Friday night following a meeting between the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister. He came in the line of fire for having interfered with the ongoing CBI probe into the coal blocks allocation scam.

The Supreme Court had on Wednesday observed that the “heart” of the probe report had been changed following the government’s interference, though Kumar strongly maintained that the top court had not directly blamed him.

The opposition had not allowed the parliament to function during the second half of the budget session demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation and Kumar’s sacking on the CBI probe issue.

Asked whether he has been made a scapegoat, Kumar refused to make a comment but said he would rather let people make a judgment.

To a poser on his decision to resign if he has done no wrong, he said when resignation papers are put, “they do not, by any stretch of imagination, imply any wrongdoing.”